Top 5 Data Center Stories: Week of March 2

The Week in Review: Intel's Hadoop announcements caps a big week for Big Data, Azure uptime expires along with its SSL certificate, Equinix boosts its cash stash, and GM plans to consolidate in Michigan.

For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of five noteworthy stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge this past week. Enjoy!

Intel Enters the Hadoop Software Market - The market for Hadoop software continues to attract new players. Intel (INTC) announced the availability of its Distribution for Apache Hadoop, including new management tools. More than 20 partners announced support for Intel’s Hadoop offering, including Cisco, Red Hat, Cray and Supermicro.

Windows Azure Cloud Crashed by Expired SSL Certificate - So how did an expired SSL certificate crash the Windows Azure storage cloud computing platform Friday and Saturday? It’s an expensive question for Microsoft, which will be offering customer credits for the outage.

GM Plans $258 Million Data Center in Michigan- General Motors is hoping to build a $258 million data center at a research facility it owns in Milford, Michigan. The company is seeking tax abatements for the project at the Milford Proving Ground, which would feature a 100,000 square foot data center and employ about 20 workers.

Equinix to Sell $1.5 Billion in Notes to Fund Construction, Acquisitions - Colocation provider Equinix plans to sell up to $1.5 billion in senior notes, and will use some of the money to build new data centers and fund acquisitions, the company said Thursday. The offering shows that the data center industry’s strongest players continue to use their financial strength to enter new markets and boost their competitive position.

Vantage Lines Up 1 Megawatt Lease in Santa Clara- Vantage Data Centers has signed a new long-term customer lease for a 1 megawatt data hall on its campus in Santa Clara, California, the company said this week. The deal continues the busy pace of leasing in Santa Clara, the hub of data center activity in Silicon Valley.